Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2015-069860 discloses examples of conventional vehicle lighting fixtures employing an LED as a light source.
FIG. 1 illustrates an example of this kind of vehicle lighting fixture. As illustrated, the vehicle lighting fixture 80 can include an outer lens 82, a housing 81 that can define a lighting chamber 83 together with the outer lens 82, a substrate 86 on which an LED 85 is mounted, a substrate holder 84 which is fixed to an upper part of the housing 81 and to the lower surface of which the substrate 86 is attached, and a reflector 87 that is disposed below the substrate 86. The LED 85 can be installed so as to face downward to emit light downwardly.
When the LED 85 is turned on to emit light, the reflector 87 below the LED 85 can receive the light to reflect the same forward, to thereby project the light through the outer lens 82 forward of a vehicle body in which the lighting fixture 80 is installed.
In the vehicle lighting fixture 80 with the aforementioned configuration, the vehicle lighting fixture 80 can include an extension 88 with a shielding portion 89 disposed inside and along the outer lens 82 at an upper portion of the lighting fixture 80. This shielding portion 89 of the extension 88 can conceal the substrate holder 84, the substrate 86 with the LED 85 attached, and the like. Furthermore, the extension 88 can have an opening 90 at its lower portion, so that the light emitted from the LED 85 and reflected by the reflector 87 can pass therethrough forward of the vehicle body.
When the vehicle lighting fixture 80 is operated, the inside space of the lighting chamber 83 of the vehicle lighting fixture 80 is not effectively utilized for the purpose of the formation of the light path, and the light can only be projected from the lower region (lower half portion) of the outer lens 82 but not be projected from the upper region (upper half portion) thereof.
Furthermore, since the light is not projected from the entire region of the outer lens 82 but can only be projected from part thereof, an observer may feel a sense of discomfort or strange. Specifically, since the light-exiting area of the outer lens 82 is small and accordingly the cross-sectional area of the projected light is small or the light can be projected not from the entire region but only from the lower half region thereof when viewed from its front side, deterioration of the appearance of the vehicle lighting fixture operated cannot be avoided.